Friday, September 14, 2012

2012 - A head-space odyssey...

It's 8.10am. A school day. I'm still in my bathrobe, wet hair and shut in the laundry with a bucket of soapy water and one very unhappy and uncooperative pooch. Who's feet I'm about to attack with a scrubbing brush.

'Shit' where's the damn scrubbing brush got to?

The fur-person, having stepped in his own poo, walked laps of the living-room before finally settling onto his faux-suede futon while Lucie was having breakfast.

I was busy working on gathering items for her show & tell presentation that we'd sworn the night before, we wouldn't forget and leave till the last minute. Hah!

We're pretty sure it's 'bring in something interesting from space' & I've found her glowing moon, but the battery operated sparkly stars she has her heart set on have gone A.W.O.L.

I looked at the pooh smears about the floor and peeping out from under our dog's reclining body, and that last minute stretched, grew beyond what any mother could expect to squeeze into your average school morning.

I think, 'Shit!' and I say "oh."

But never underestimate the power of last-minute-stretching. With help from the Daddy person, Lucie was out of the door at 8:45, yes, with a less than elaborate hair-do, but necessary show&tell items in her school-bag, a clean, albeit dispirited dog in the back of the car and that stinking pile of towels & dog-bed cover festering where they landed outside the back door.

We arrive in her classroom at 9am on the dot thanks to the kind benevolence of the traffic gods.

First thing I notice is that the show & tell topic indicator on the classroom door says; "an interesting fact about space".

'crap.'

First boy up has an artistic illustration his parent has drawn of a rocket;
He tells the class about the first Lunar landing and that it takes three whole days to fly to the moon. There were more interesting facts that I missed, because his classmates were restless and fidgety, and I was very busy thinking;
'crap'.

Lucie was the act to follow that.

"I brought the moon," she says extracting her little light-up perspex crescent moon -with what might have been a flourish if the plastic bag had been more obliging.
"..and a star!"

The entire fidgety audience was still and silent as Lucie, then her teacher fiddled with the star's on switch.

Finally lit, lights were dimmed so everyone could appreciate the glowiness & sparkliness of Lucie's moon & star and the silence gave way to soft "ooooh's" & "ahhhhhs"..

Thursday, September 6, 2012

It wasn't how I'd pictured our first day in
Paris, charging around desperately searching the base of the Eiffel tower for a loo; but they don't call it 'the runs' for nothing.

We'd arrived the early evening before and
decided to just get an early dinner which, considering it had been in the very
high thirties all day, perhaps takinga
plate of assorted meats, sausage, cheese and pate wasn't the smartest choice.

OK travelers' tip number one: if extensive
travels have given you a sensitive stomach, don't order dairy and deli platters
at the end of a very hot day.

Paris old girl, you are so photogenic, even your metro signs are pretty :0)

Travelers' tip number two: if you are exiting
the Paris Metro, at the Eiffel Tower and you need the loo, don't even bother
with the automated chemical public toilet outside the station. You may not even
be able to see it, but there is one, behind a crowd of desperate looking
crossed legged tourists.If you travel
around the path behind the Metro, you'll find a proper toilet just below the third foot you pass of the tower. This one with a human attendant is reasonably clean (as in not strewn in wet
toilet paper from the function laughing named "auto-clean"). And it's
free.

Let me tell you, after that little episode, I
KNOW my Parisienne toilets, and most of 'em aren't pretty. How much time do you
think that French 'male' waiters are going to invest in the cleanliness of any
toilet let alone the ladies'? So stick to the bigger cafes & restaurants is
my advice, call it wine-o-clock and stay put for a while.

So back to the tour, Lucie was so very excited
about the Eiffel Tower. The only thing is that perhaps it would be prettier
painted pink is all. What IS it with girls and pink?

Our dilemma was that in our pre-Eiffel Tower
visit build-up, we had promised we would go up the top. If you find yourself on
a family holiday to Paris...NEVER, EVER SAY THIS TO YOUR CHILD.

by 10am the base of The Tower looks a lot like the base of an anthill - over-run with tourists.

Have you SEEN the queues to go up that thing?
Worse than the toilet queues and that is saying something! There were about 200
people ahead of us in the queue for the elevator (l'assensuer). That's only my
best guess because it snaked around the base of tower, out of sight behind the
ticket office and other random buildings and back in view again.There where only about 100 people waiting to
climb the stairs, and Lucie decided stairs would the best fun anyway. Mummy and
Daddy where exchanging desperate glances at this point, between Mummy's
'indelicate condition' and the inevitability of this vertical excursion turning
into a ride on Daddy's shoulders, (from about the fourth step up) this was NOT
going to be the best fun at all.

"Pretty tower" :0)

After unsuccessfully pleading our case to the
jury and with Judge Lucie about to throw the full weight of the tantrum at us,
Daddy spotted our saviour: "Look Lucie! A carousel!" And that was
it,case dismissed.

Mic here is a hitch-hiker we picked up in Spain: turns out he's a celebrity with his own show on Catalan TV..

However, during these delicate and intense negotiations,
we discovered that at 11.30pm the Eiffel Tower web site offer tickets for
purchase for the next day whereby you can turn up at 9am and go straight on up
avoiding the queues. However Lucie, not being much of a planner, (tomorrow's a
bit of an abstract concept to four-year-olds) decided a few dozen rounds on a
carousel with fine ET views was 'more fun and straight away'.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

The Daddy person did us proud on the
accommodation too, since our old favorite boutique hotel La Villa in Saint
Germaine had priced itself out of our comfort zone.He scored us a self catered studio apartment
in Citadines Prestige Apart'hotel, right on the banks of the Seine opposite
Pont Neuf .So in the heart of Paris
sandwiched between Saint Germain and Saint Michelle, and a mere bridge stroll
over to the Louvre,cost only 200 euros
a night: more than reasonable for a premium location.

Nice and new, practical and not one bit of moldy silicone sealant in the bathrooms :0)

So being in the thick of Paris's coolest districts, we
spent four days, shlepping about the Louvre; Soaking up the austerity of Notre Dame...

looking through the arches at The Louvre

Sipping our coffees in Les Deux
Magots...

Slumming it in Les Deux Magots.. two tables down from a fashion photo shoot..

Ambling and clicking our way (cameras) along
the bridges of the Seine...

Love locks on the Seine bridges look amazing glittering in the sun and have become a tourist attraction in their own right.. But of course in Sydney we're not allowed anything so frivolous..

Sydney city council takes to ours with bolt cutters...where's the romance in that?